Blond
by KatxValentine
Summary: Charlotte Charles has always, admittedly, admired a particular shade of gold, or any difference she, herself, could not possess. Olive Snook harbors that fiery uniqueness, but how will the brunette come about speaking how deeply she loves that? OliveChuck
1. The Art of Falling

Chuck had decided a number of important things in her life. When her father had passed, she had decided she would move in with her two aunts—well, not quite decided, but regardless it was, in essence, a sort of decision. She had decided to go on that cruise. She had decided to be a good person. But her current decision, though menial, was regardless another thing decided.

She admired blondes. She found the color was something that took a great deal of effort to pull off, uniqueness that Chuck, herself, was not willing to live with. Something about the lustrous shade made a person stand out, and Chuck looked to anyone who could stand out so boldly and still enjoy it with interest.

This particular blonde whom she had made the decision about happened to be a certain Olive Snook.

The miniature waitress was forcing out her own brand of pie-laced glee to the customers as Chuck idly examined from the back-counter, forbidden from touching a thing whilst Ned and Emerson went about their business elsewhere identifying corpses and other questionable acts of necromancy that was not quite so necromantic. Chuck found herself wondering an array of interesting things. Was Olive a natural blonde? How did one happen upon a shade so brilliant?

Chuck's mental etch-a-sketch always made Olive into a red-head, somehow. She found the girl to be brilliantly outspoken in so many ways (even if they were at Chuck's expense), fiery and vivid and opinionated to almost dangerous ends. All of that, in the Chuck's head, evened out to auburn, or perhaps a calm copper.

But upon Olive's head sat no form of dusty red. Every hair was a spun gold, and that made Chuck's little nose scrunch in a slightly irate way. She liked what she saw in her head better, when it made a little more sense.

"Thanks for your productivity," Olive's high voice yanked Chuck from her reverie, "It's so appreciated in pie-world."

Sarcasm was Snook's forte, Chuck had found, but her motto had always been that you caught more honey with flies than with vinegar. So she just smiled, and hardly a thought against the beautiful waitress even flickered across her mind. She watched Olive snatch up a cherry pie from the counter and wander off with it to the designated table, returning to her intent study of the woman's follicles. They seemed to shimmer in the light.

Chuck's nature was one of simple captivation. She never thought twice before losing herself to detail, which was why she seemed to love books so much. To Chuck, Olive was the moving character in a novel she found herself already knee-deep in. Her eyes plastered themselves to Olive's back, tracking every motion with precise ingenuity.

It was in that moment that Charlotte Charles had begun to fall for Olive Snook, and Olive Snook had just begun not to take notice of said falling.


	2. The Talent of Inelegance

It had been exactly two hours and ten minutes since Chuck had begun her absorption in the shade of Olive's hair. The soft, lovely gold became more and more prominent in the dead girl's mind, but then, so did other things.

Chuck began to quietly admire the very way Olive seemed to move, with a stylish grace so eloquent and simple that her four-foot-eleven height was completely belied.

"Well…" Olive brushed past again, eyeing the clock with an exhausted countenance that proved how badly she wanted this day to end, "Quit gawkin' like a dumbfounded loon and help me clean up."

Olive's incessant order-barking just sunk into Chuck's brain like the contents of a newly baked-and-warm pie. She was unfamiliar with this spellbound feeling so eagerly curling up within her mind, but she did not push it away, either. Chuck was getting the very first spark of what she would later understand to be infatuation.

Now, Chuck was almost clumsily dropping plates as she kept a close eye on the waitresses' every step. When she breathed, Chuck could imagine this funny, soft, squeaky sound following. The thought made her smile, and the smile lit up her pretty, greenish-brown eyes.

"Again, where _is_ your head at, Chuck?" Olive's mood having lightened since she'd 'gotten off work' (could one 'get off work', when their place of work was right downstairs from their home?) put Chuck in a much more comfortable place. She and Olive had become considerably friendly, but Chuck's unwitting, subconscious mind wished they would get friendlier.

"My head? Oh, my head is right where it always is…on my shoulders, silly." And she found the blonde's sarcastic chortle of a laugh was enough to make her chest uncomfortably tingly. Perhaps, she thought, bemused and amused all at once, this was how the Grinch felt when they expanded his heart several sizes too big.

"Well keep it there! –And come on, if Ned gets back and we've got a mess, he's sure to be angrier than a starving jackal," Chuck stopped, and couldn't help but give her a look that enunciated the thought _'Starving jackal?'. _Olive nonchalantly brushed it off, her charming little giggle edged so thickly with anxiety it was a wonder Chuck could still breathe the surrounding air.

Olive's confusion with Chuck's behavior was ever-mounting. When she looked at the brunette, the woman either seemed to brim with delight pouring out of her eyes, or shyly glance away while fidgeting nervously. Why had Chuck suddenly taken up this behavior? She'd never acted like this before toward Olive, and this both worried and confused her. Did she have something on her nose? Whenever Chuck gave that half-delirious stare, Olive merely returned it with a gaze as though creatures were crawling from Chuck's ears.

The last plate clanked into the sink and, as Olive was just about to begin the arduous task of tippy-toe dishwashing, a voice swiftly pulled her from her task...but it was less a query and more of a blurt.

"When we're done here—can I invite you up for some tea?"

Olive's heart briefly kindled into a warm glow, and she felt somewhat delighted by the extension of kindness. Promptly, the not-so-perceptive woman chirped, "I would love to."


	3. The Discomfort of Awkwardness

I persist to not own Pushing Daisies, and have to apologize for my incredulously sluggish updating

I persist to not own Pushing Daisies, and have to apologize for my incredulously sluggish updating. Luckily enough, I can breathe again, being a (THANK GOD) high school graduate, as of now, and I'll be doing a lot of writing! That makes a Kat very happy. Without further ado, on with the show!

XxXxXxXxXx

Olive Snook was not one who was foreign to the rules of attraction. Ever since she was young, Olive had known that she was pretty. Perhaps even exceptionally pretty in a way that took a little while to notice and a lot of while to stop pining over. So, of course, she understood Chuck's sudden anxiety around her—

But what had spurred Chuck's sudden attraction to her?

"Can I help you with those, Olive?"

The tiny waitress paused to stare briefly over toward Chuck, whose disturbingly wide smile has now become one full of anticipation and mild (slightly reminiscent of teenage) nervousness. She shook her head, and pressed herself against the sink in order to reach a counter only the ridiculously tall Pie-Maker could reach. This kitchen was not created for the vertically challenged.

Sometimes, Olive realized that Chuck's sweet, warm naïveté and snuggly willingness to leap into a situation was what made her enjoy the dead girl's companionship.

"You can help me out by drying these off, though," Chuck had added an interesting new item to her repertoire of Olive's interesting qualities, a small check-off list composed off neat marks within her brain. This particular mark was placed next to the words 'charmingly adorable voice'.

"Then I can go make you tea?"

The waitress sighed, and couldn't help but crack a tired, if not loveable smile.

"Then you can go make me tea."

Chuck's sudden decision toward Olive Snook did not seem rational. It did not ring clearly, like any sort of crystal bell or seamless echo. It did not reverberate perfect sounds within a hollow room. The thought was polluted by wads of feeling-stoppers in the forms of words. These feeling-stoppers were not getting through to Chuck, who was decidedly quieting them by blatantly ignoring.

If Ned could not touch her, and Ned could not love her, she had found her mind was wrapping itself easily around the next best thing. Or perhaps the very best thing? Her mind was never too keen on decision-making.

"Chuck! –Chuck! …You're dripping all over the floor. Jiminy Christmas—ground control to Major Chuck, you in there?"

The rapidly quickening sense of magnetism rose to a definitive peak for Charlotte Charles, who, inside of a few hours, had quickly found herself loving Olive Snook. Chuck's smile quirked ever wider, and then she was, decidedly, amused. She was amused to the extent that she'd begun to laugh under her breath, and the Chuck-chortles were now Chuck-giggles.

"…What?"

In-between small bouts of laughter, Chuck simply raised an eyebrow. Now it was her turn to be cheeky. "Jiminy Christmas?"

"—Dry the dishes."


End file.
